


Worst. Day. Ever.

by summerrain24601



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: 9:42 Dragon, Everything Went To Shit, Gen, what did we miss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-06-23 17:00:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15610845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerrain24601/pseuds/summerrain24601
Summary: Of course they'd gone in expecting a fight. It would've been too easy if Alexius had simply handed the mages over. But nobody could have planned for them getting sent into the future... and stuck there."What if we can't get back?" she had asked."Then we get comfortable in our new present," he had responded. He hadn't expected the magic to fail.





	1. When time gets away from you

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still debating whether to post my cross-worlds AU, but in the meantime, have fun with this alt-future instead.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "They died to make sure we could get back to the past and help this future not happen... I wish they'd been able to escape with us instead."

"Wait a minute, that crystal looks cracked," she told him, examining it. "Will the reversal spell still work?"

"It has to," he reminded her. She swallowed hard and nodded. He was right. If this didn't work, they were all dead. He began to work on the amulet as their future-self allies conversed. The woman with short hair nodded at the bearded man, and both began to make for the door. 

Then the amulet, instead of focusing the magic, shattered. The pair threw their arms up to protect their faces from getting cut by crystal shards, but that was all they could do. The woman in purple with a bow on her back stared for a moment before she turned to look at the door. Clear sounds of combat came from the other side. 

"Quickly, this way," the purple-clad woman said, grabbing the elf's wrist and dragging her down a secret passage behind the throne. 

"How did you know about this one?" Reva asked.

"There are many things in my past that you do not know," Leliana responded simply, her beautiful lilting voice made harsh by her decimated, blighted appearance. Then, the mark on Reva's hand flared to life, sending a shooting pain up her arm that was strong enough to make her lose her footing and stumble, collapsing against the cold stone floor of the tunnel. 

"Are you alright?" Dorian asked, concerned. He'd taken a step back, as if he was afraid of the sparking green lights that shot from Reva's hand. She didn't blame him. She was afraid of them too.

"Just like before…" Leliana muttered, helping the elf to her feet.

"I should've seen that coming," Reva muttered after the green glow had faded, leaving the three of them temporarily blinded. "It did that all the way up to the Breach the first time. It must be destabilizing because of how big the Breach is now…"

"And Solas's magic only managed to control it for a few days," Leliana remembered, worry coloring her now unfamiliar voice.

"Well, let's hope he's still alive… In whatever mess Thedas fell into during our little trip." She couldn't let herself think about it yet, not until they were safe. 

The sun had long since set by the time they made camp, but the Breach's green glow kept the darkness at bay. Reva found and closed a few rifts around the area to help lower the risk of demonic attack during the night. After she returned to the others, she finally allowed herself to start processing what had happened. She had watched both Blackwall and Cassandra die on the hope that they could fix the past. But they hadn't. Blackwall and Cassandra had died for nothing. How many of her friends had died thinking that she'd died first? She couldn't help it, then. The tears came unbidden.

"You know what we need to do?" Dorian asked later, after simply letting her cry. "We need to go back to Haven. We need the Inquisition."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who like keeping track, the companions brought along for In Hushed Whispers were Blackwall and Cassandra.


	2. We know the way... or maybe not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of the chapter titles are references to non-Thedas things. Bragging rights to you if you can figure out what they all are.

Reva ran the back of one hand across her cheek. "But the journal we found said… the Inquisition tried to come after us and failed," she reminded them. "And Ferelden tried after that too, and failed. Who's left, Weisshaupt? Wardens don't do politics, and Tevinter won't want to admit that this is their fault."

"We must try," Leliana said, stoking the fire. "And we must rest."

"Demons are going to be everywhere because of that," Reva reasoned, glancing up at the Breach, spread all across the sky. " _Unbound demons have emptied the castle, village, and surrounding countryside of everyone who's not sleeping in their armor. Now it's just wild demons everywhere._ " She leaned back against the tree and pulled her knees to her chest. "This… is all my fault. If I'd gone to the Templars, none of this would've happened."

"Or it could have been ten times worse," Dorian told her. "At least you're still alive to fix the world. You get some sleep, I'll take first watch."

"I'm so sorry, Leliana," Reva said after a moment. "I should have been faster… or stronger… or something. Someone else should have been your Herald. I just wasn't good enough." With that, she lowered herself onto her side and attempted to fall asleep. 

"We're going to need to know what we missed eventually," she heard Dorian say sometime later that night. "It was only a year, but obviously so much went wrong. One of the journals she found said they experimented on you?"

A bitter laugh followed his words. "One of them told me I would have made a good Warden," she admitted. "But, yes. It was their way of trying to get information I wouldn't give them."

"Was it even information you had?" He sounded skeptical.

"No. She never remembered the details of what happened at the Conclave. Even if I wanted to, I had nothing to tell."

"Alright, you should get some sleep too," Dorian said after a moment of silence. "We may have missed a whole year, but you spent most of it locked up in that dungeon. I'll keep watch and wake you if I hear anything." 

"This has been more overwhelming for you, and for her," Leliana reminded him. After a short silence, Reva heard a rustling. Presumably as Leliana situated herself to try to get a few hours of sleep. 

She was awakened at dawn by another shooting pain up her arm caused by the mark on her hand, her scream surprising both of the others. 

"Each time the Breach expands, the mark spreads," Dorian said softly after the light had faded again, a hint of curious wonder in his voice. 

"And it's killing me, again," Reva said, resigned to her fate. "Solas's magic only worked for a few days. The only thing that really stopped it was…"

"Using the mark's magic on the Breach," Leliana remembered. "But trying that last year left you unconscious for three days."

"Like you said last night, we have to try," Reva reminded her. "Haven was where it all began, and Haven is where we need to go to stop it."

"Using that logic, Haven will be overrun by demons by now," Dorian admitted.

"You were the one who said we needed to go there," Reva told him.

"Yes, well, that was before I had time to think. If the Breach is this bad here, it can only get worse the closer you get to Haven. I don't think we'll be able to get anywhere near that village alone."

"Can you find out if any of the others are still alive?" Reva asked Leliana.

"I can try, but after spending so long in the dungeon I am sure they think I'm as dead as the two of you were supposed to be," the redhead admitted. "My agents may not have survived the year. But I will try."

"In the meantime, we need to find somewhere else to stay," Reva decided. "The village isn't far enough from the castle to avoid the demons, and after what happened at the Circle Tower during the Blight, I doubt that place has done much better. The Blightlands are to the south, nothing can grow there and there's too many corpses, both people and darkspawn. So our best bet is to go somewhere north along the road. With so many demons, we'd be better off avoiding the Brecilian Forest."

"We could go to Denerim," Dorian suggested.

"That is a good idea," Leliana agreed. "King Alistair and Queen Elyssa are both personal friends. If anyone can help us, they can."

"Assuming they haven't also gone into hiding or something," Reva muttered, massaging her marked left hand with the thumb of her right. "But it is a place to start."


	3. I Found... someone.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Denerim. The safest city in Ferelden, with Redcliffe being taken over by demons. The city was partially destroyed during the Battle of Denerim, at the end of the Blight, but rose up from the ashes, her people more determined than ever. This is where they begin rebuilding.

"You know more about being sneaky, and I'm used to having to avoid the city shems from all my time with my clan. So, remind me again why we sent the Tevinter mage to go info-gathering?"

"Because he will still stand out less than we do," Leliana told her, not for the first time. "You are a Dalish elf with a glowing hand, and I am… Well." She didn't need to say it. Even if the Inquisition's former spymaster was starting to look better despite their time on the road and fighting demons, she still had the look of someone with the blight sickness. _By the Creators, did they give her darkspawn blood too?_ She hadn't wanted to ask. What they did to Leliana had been a bit of a sore subject.

"But he's obviously not Ferelden, and nobody in their right minds would be running _toward_ the Breach," she reasoned from her perch a few layers up a tree. She sat on the branch with her feet hanging, watching one of Denerim's gates. "Not now, at least. We haven't even seen any Templars since Redcliffe." And they hadn't. It was like the journal said. The farming villages around Ferelden had been deserted, fields growing wild and bones of druffalo or horses bleached white by the sun and in their pastures. It was expected, really, that everyone would flee. Most of the people in the southern half of Ferelden had already done that last decade, during the Blight. They probably hadn't even unpacked everything. They'd have gone to Denerim first, since it had walls. It looked like there were still people living in the city, from what Reva could see. Guards manned the gates, and every once in a while someone would slip through while about their business.

"There!" she said, finally spotting their dark-skinned companion. When he got closer, she swung her way from one branch to the next before dropping to the ground. "Well?"

"Looks like King Alistair and Queen Elyssa are still in charge, for now, but the titles have become more of a token appointment," he reported. "Not much left for them to be in charge of."

"It's good to know both of them are still alive," Leliana admitted. 

"Most anyone who's still alive is holed up in somewhere called Fort Drakon," he continued. "Do you know any way in?"

"I do," Leliana confirmed, though she didn't elaborate. 

"Good. We need to get inside so we can find them," Reva said. "They might be our only chance." 

"The gates close at dusk, so we should probably make our way inside now," Dorian added helpfully. 

"I can get us inside Fort Drakon without being seen," Leliana told them. "Once we're inside the city, both of you follow my lead." The other two nodded, and the trio began to make their way down the path again.

Getting into the city wasn't that hard. They were coming from the south, sort of, so they just seemed like more people fleeing the demons. The man at the gate had assumed Leliana to be Dorian's wife, and that Reva was their servant. Thanks to their traveling cloaks, the guard hadn't seen any details on either woman's face. Once they were away from the gate, Leliana led them down a maze of side streets to a building with an impossibly tall tower. 

"That is where the archdemon was killed," Leliana said after a moment before leading them through the shadows and around to the back of the building. A second-floor window was left open, and somehow all three of them managed to get up and inside it. Leliana had scrambled through first, then between her and Dorian, they managed to hoist Reva through. Dorian climbed up the wall like he'd done it before, but not very well. The three of them managed to follow the voices downstairs to what must have been the soldiers' dining hall. At the front of the room was a table with a few familiar faces at it. The King and Queen sat in the middle, their simple armor still shining in the torchlight. On King Alistair's left sat a rather grumpy looking older man and a woman Reva could only guess as his wife. Next to the Queen was a man who could've only been a few years older than Queen Elyssa, and was similar enough that there was only one person he could be. Her brother, Teyrn Fergus Cousland of Highever. Flags sporting the crests of several different noble houses dotted the stone walls, and the dull muttering of conversation buzzed through the hall. With their traveling cloaks still on, no one spared the trio a second glance. Their time fighting the demons on the road made them look just like every other refugee in there.

Leliana sat at the nearest empty spot, and Dorian sat beside her. Trying to play the role of the serving girl, Reva stood awkwardly for a moment before Dorian pulled her by the hand to sit on his other side. They got a few funny looks, but mostly the other people were ignored while the three of them ate. It was the first real meal they'd had in a long time. The demons had cleaned out the Hinterlands of all animal life, and the rest of Ferelden hadn't been doing much better. It wasn't the best meal they'd ever had, but it was still food. And it wasn't demon parts, which was a plus.

Most of the other refugees had left for the night before King Alistair and Queen Elyssa descended from their table, followed by a few of the other nobles. Elyssa seemed to be talking to her brother, not noticing when her husband stopped in his tracks, his gaze locked on Reva's party. He went around the tables until he was behind Leliana, much to the confusion of the others with him. Before he could do anything else, Leliana stood and turned to him.

"It has been a long time, my friend," she said softly, a smile obvious in her voice though she didn't really lift her head. "May we speak with you?" Alistair waved to Elyssa, and dismissed the other nobles. 

"Leliana?" Elyssa said after a moment, hesitant and surprised at the same time. "You're alive?"

"I am not the only one who has returned from the dead," the bard joked, motioning to Reva, who stood and removed the hood of her cloak. 

"And you are?" Alistair asked.

"I am Reva Lavellan."

"The Herald of Andraste? But the reports I read said you died in Redcliffe, at the hands of the magister," Elyssa said, confused.

"Alexius is dead," Reva reported. The king and queen shared a confused look, and Elyssa nodded to her husband.

"Perhaps you should come with us, tell us the whole story," she suggested.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any and all feedback is appreciated! Well, as long as it's constructive. Things you'd like to see, or what you think might happen, anything. And if you notice something that doesn't quite fit, please point it out to me! I don't always notice my own mistakes.


	4. Once Upon a Time

"Of course. You can use anything we have left," Elyssa promised. "Including our birds."

"Thank you, my friend," Leliana said with a smile. They had been surprised by her gaunt appearance, but a lot of the bruising had faded over the weeks they took to get to Denerim. Now she simply looked like someone who hadn't eaten well in a long time. Leliana turned to Reva. 

"I'll leave you to it, Leliana," Reva said with a nod. "Let me know if you hear anything from anyone." She had opened her mouth to speak again when an ever-familiar pain shot up her arm, and the mark on her left hand began to spark and glow again. She cried out in pain, pressing her arm against her stomach as she doubled over against it. The pain lasted longer this time, almost bringing her to her knees as she felt it radiate not just up her arm, but through her shoulder. 

"Are you alright?" Elyssa asked when Reva recovered. The elf stared down at her marked hand, an unreadable look in her eyes.

"For the moment," she said, dropping her left hand to her side again. "I'm not sure how long I've got before this thing consumes me, but to get close enough to close the Breach, we're going to need help."

"We'll do whatever we can," Elyssa promised, "but what remains to us will likely not be enough."

"Then we search other places," Reva said. "All of Thedas if we have to. The Breach threatens the entire world. Just because it started here in the south doesn't mean the rest of Thedas can ignore it anymore."

"I can see why you picked her," Alistair chuckled.

"She is such a rare breed, isn't she?" Dorian agreed with a grin. Reva gave him a _you're not helping_ glare. "Don't do that, you look like my mother."

"Maybe it's a look mothers perfected," Reva countered, turning back to Leliana's friends. "We appreciate any help you can give." She had continued speaking before any comment could be made on her previous words. After so much had happened, that wasn't something she wanted to deal with now. She looked over at her redheaded friend. "There's one more thing I need to ask of you."

"What is it?"

"Can you contact my clan? I want to know if they survived the last year."

"Of course."

"There should be a few spare rooms on the higher floors of the tower, if you'd like to stay a few days," Elyssa offered. 

"Honestly, camping out on the floor with everyone else is fine with me," Reva said with a slight shrug. "It isn't that much different from traveling with the clan." Having rooms to themselves would just advertise that they were special guests, and she'd had about all the special treatment she could stand. 

"We won't be staying too long anyway," Leliana admitted, looking to Reva, who nodded.

"A friend of ours said he was from Kirkwall, and my bet is that he went back there," Reva told them.

"Friend of yours? He wouldn't happen to be a dwarf named Varric, would he?" Alistair asked. Reva and Dorian exchanged surprised looks, but Leliana just nodded. "We keep in touch, actually. Last I heard from him was… Several months ago. He'd gone back to Kirkwall to see what help he could be in building the city up against the demons." 

Reva's gaze fell. "Because I'm the only one who can close the Rifts," she muttered. All anyone else could do during the last year was fight off the demons. She was the only one who could really stop them from breaking through the Veil.

"We've been over this already," Dorian chimed in, ever cheerful. "It wasn't your fault, it was Alexius's spell." 

"Can you explain that to me again?" Elyssa requested. "I have a mage friend, and I was in contact with First Enchanter Irving before the Circles rebelled, but time magic is new to me."

"I doubt Morrigan ever shared all her secrets. Even with you," Alistair muttered. Clearly this Morrigan person, despite being a friend of the Queen, was not someone the King looked very highly on. Reva glanced at Leliana, who looked like she knew that name too. But, like Alistair, the look on her face made Reva guess that Leliana didn't like whoever Morrigan was. 

"It must be the Breach," Dorian explained. "Before, we had tried and failed to alter time in any way. But the Breach is making all magic go haywire." 

"There was a journal we found in the castle that said Alexius had tried to go back to the Conclave," Reva added. "But he couldn't use the time magic to back before the Breach."

"Close the Breach, and hopefully the time magic disappears with it," Elyssa concluded. 

"Essentially, yes," Dorian agreed. "But we need allies to assist. That's what we were doing in Redcliffe."

"How is Arl Teagan?" Leliana asked suddenly. When both King and Queen looked away, she lowered her gaze to the floor. "I see."

"We've heard nothing since the mages took over Redcliffe," Elyssa admitted. "But you returned alive, after all. Maybe he's just…" She looked up at Alistair, who put an arm around her shoulders, and Reva looked away. They had shared so much. The two of them seemed so close. She almost felt like she was intruding on a private moment.

"But you all look like you could use some rest," Alistair said suddenly. Something in his voice made Reva wonder if this conversation was getting a little too serious for him. "Leliana, we have a few birds you can use to send word to what's left of the Inquisition, but I don't know where they might be."

"Varric's probably in Kirkwall," Reva said after a moment. "As for the others… Sera said she was here in Denerim during the Blight, maybe she came back. Josephine has family in Antiva, so that's a place to start, at least. Who knows where Bull went… What about Cullen's family?"

"They moved to South Reach after the Blight, but his sister does always manage to track him down," Leliana said.

"South Reach… Most of the ones that survived the first wave of attacks ended up here already," Elyssa said thoughtfully. "Actually, I know Cullen myself. Not well, but I think I remember seeing him with our refugees a few months ago. He probably joined what's left of our soldiers."

"So, maybe they'll have leads," Reva reasoned with a nod. "Vivienne probably went back to Orlais, but I doubt they're all that much better off…"

"I heard the Divine's Right Hand, as well as a Marcher Warden, had joined you as well. What of them?" Elyssa asked. Reva's eyes squeezed shut, and she turned away.

"They were prisoners in Redcliffe Castle," she reported softly. "Another few months, and they would've fallen to the red lyrium corruption. Instead, they sacrificed themselves so we could escape…" 

"Maker's Breath!" Elyssa gasped. 

"We should let you get some rest," Alistair said, one hand resting on Elyssa's back. "It's getting late, and you'll probably want to start searching for your friends in the morning." With that, he began gently leading his queen out of the dining hall, putting a kind but firm end to the conversation.


	5. Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to kick butt and take names, right? No? Well, let's figure out how we're going to get to that part, shall we?

They decided to spend a few days recuperating in Fort Drakon while they waited for news from Leliana's attempts at contact. The first word they got back was the raven sent to Kirkwall, and it came back with good news. A letter from Varric.

_Andraste's ass, Nightingale, I didn't think I'd hear from you again. Glad to hear that you, Sparkler, and Twinkle Toes are alive, though. I'm sorry about Cassandra, I know you two were close. None of that magic shit made any sense to me, but at least this means we have a fighting chance at fixing this again. I've kept in contact with Hawke, no doubt Fenris is somewhere north with her. I'll talk to the others here and see who I can convince to come out of hiding. If Twinkle Toes is going to close that thing, she'll need all the help she can get._

"Sparkler?" Dorian protested.

"Twinkle Toes?" Reva said, in similar tone. 

"He said it was because of your tendency to vanish in the middle of a fight, and then reappear just in time to rain arrows down on the enemy," Leliana explained to Reva, leaving Dorian's protest unanswered. 

"But this means some of the others may still be alive too," Reva realized, breaking into a grin. "And we haven't checked the refugees to find Cullen's family yet, either. I'll do that today." Leliana nodded, and Reva scampered off before Dorian could protest again. She wouldn't admit it to any of them, but her heart had started to speed up when she realized Cullen might still be alive after all.

"Quite a whirlwind, that one," Elyssa said with a laugh. "Kind of reminds me of someone…"

"Maybe a little," Alistair agreed, chuckling softly. Leliana shot them both a glare, which just made Elyssa dissolve into a fit of giggles quite unbecoming for one of such standing.

Reva followed a few flights of stairs down to the second level, only to hear panicking voices and screams as the refugees started feeing up past her. She heard someone yell to get the king, and she started running faster. She managed to shove her way through the door the refugees were streaming out of and spotted the reason for the chaos. A rift had opened up inside the fort. Several people had drawn weapons to fight the demons that appeared. A rage demon, a pair of terrors, and a batch of shades. Before she could think, her bow was in her hand, firing at the demons to keep them off the refugees.

"We'll have to evacuate the city," she heard a familiar voice say from somewhere behind her as she approached the rift after the demons were dead. "If they can appear here, we'll be trapping ourselves in if we don't leave now." 

"Hey!" another voice called, realizing how close Reva was to the rift. "Elf! Get back!" She glanced over her shoulder at them, and saw the man's eyes widen in surprise. She offered a small grin, holding up her left hand to show them the snapping magic of the mark, then held it up to the rift. She bit the inside of her cheek as pain raced up her arm once again, keeping her gaze focused on the green light that linked her hand to the rift. She snapped it shut, pulling her hand away, then turned to face the few who had remained. Whispers began to circulate the silence as several men in Denerim Guard armor ran in, only to find the room strewn with demon remains.

"What happened here?" one of them demanded.

"I did," Reva said simply. "I'm sorry it took me so long to find my way back." She glanced over at the blond man as she stepped closer. It was good to see another familiar face. "Good to see you again, Commander."

"And you, Herald," he said after a moment, still sounding shocked.

"Herald? The Herald of Andraste is alive?" someone else muttered from somewhere off to Reva's left. 

"Dorian was upstairs with the Nightingale when I left them," she told him. It was obvious that Cullen was still processing her return. That the three of them were still alive? A miracle.

"Ah, yes… um…" He stuttered for a moment, then turned to one of the soldiers. "Be certain King Alistair knows that the rift has been sealed."

"Yes sir!" the soldier said before running off. Cullen turned to Reva and managed to give her a weak, small smile. 

"Lead the way," he said. "And perhaps explain to me how you're all alive? Are Cassandra and Blackwall with you?" 

Reva shook her head, ever so slightly, and made her way out the door and back up the stairs. "No, they… they gave their lives hoping Dorian and I could get back to the past," she admitted when they were alone. "Alexius had an amulet that, when paired with the right spell, sent us through time. Well, me and Dorian. We found…" She sighed softly, running a hand through her red hair. "We found Leliana being… tortured for information, in one of the cells under the castle. And… Grand Enchanter Fiona. Turning into a red lyrium statue like the one of Meredith in Kirkwall." She let out a shaky breath, the memory still clear in her mind. "But, when Dorian tried to cast the spell to get us back, the amulet shattered. So we'll just have to close the Breach now, instead of getting back to Haven with the rebel mages."

"You'll need allies," he said, stating the obvious.

"Do you know where any of the others went?" she asked him.

"Josephine went back to Antiva, to help her family prepare," he said thoughtfully. "If we're going to attack the Breach, we'll need her help."

"And a letter from Varric came earlier this morning," she reported, leading him up the stairs. "Looks like we're going to rebuild the Inquisition in order to get this done. Oh, but we can't use Haven anymore… There has to be somewhere we can use… though I guess we can stay here in the meantime."

"Reva," Cullen said, interrupting her rambling. She stopped on the stairs and turned to look at him, a few steps below her. He hadn't used her first name before, always calling her Herald or Lavellan. There was a strange look in his eyes, like he still couldn't believe she was standing in front of him. 

"Yes?" she asked softly, curious to hear what he had to say. He hesitated a moment, glancing out the nearby slit window.

"I… I am glad you've returned," he said finally. This earned him a small smile from the elf.

"Thank you," she said quietly, glancing away. "I only wish I'd been able to save Cassandra and Blackwall, too…" She turned and continued making her way up the stairs, neither of them speaking again until they reached the floor where the others were still.

"Your Highness, a rift opened up right in the middle of the kennels!" a man was saying. That must have been what the room was for, before it was needed for refugees. "If they're appearing within the city, we have no choice but to evacuate!"

"That won't be necessary," Reva said, holding the door open for Cullen before letting it close again. "The rift is closed, and the demons dead. Your only real threat is that there might be more within the city. But I can help you with that."

"We can help," Dorian corrected her. 

"We can send the guards to search the city for rifts," Alistair suggested.

"And then we'll go out and take care of it," Reva finished for him with a nod. "Also, look who I found down below." She grabbed Cullen by the hand and gave a sharp pull, basically yanking him into their circle. "Now we just need to find Josephine and we'll be all set to start rebuilding."

"Wait, rebuilding what?" Alistair asked, sounding hesitant.

"The Inquisition," Reva said, as if it should've been obvious. "Last year, we pledged to close the Breach, find those responsible, and restore order. With or without anyone's approval. And I, at least, will stand by that pledge." She looked up at the human monarchs, almost like she was daring them to challenge her. Creators… It was still hard to wrap her head around that. She'd missed a whole year…

"We can't stay here in Denerim," Cullen reminded her, stepping seamlessly back into the role as the Inquisition's Commander. "Haven was overrun by demons months ago, as was anything south of the Blightlands. We'll need to search elsewhere to find our own stronghold."

"What about Soldier's Peak?" Leliana asked, confusing her companions but looking at Elyssa.

"That place might be even worse off than we are here," Elyssa said with a shake of her head. "You remember how many demons we had to fight there, and that was even before the Breach. It's only been ten years. I doubt there's been enough healing there to make that fortress safe." 

"What's Soldier's Peak?" Reva asked.

"An old Warden fortress, abandoned several ages ago after Warden-Commander Dryden lost against her cousin, the tyrant King Arland," Elyssa summarized. "The battle that got the Wardens banished, actually. When we found it, the place was full of demons and undead. We tried to reclaim it after Avernus undid his summoning circles, but demons kept popping up. We decided it was too dangerous, closed it up, and the Ferelden Grey Wardens have maintained their focus on Amaranthine ever since."

"So, that's a no," Reva muttered. "Well, we should keep looking. Maybe Varric knows of places in the Free Marches."

"We shall know more when next we hear from him," Leliana agreed.

"And get a letter to Antiva. We'll need Josephine if we're going to do this."


End file.
